Turbulent flow field and heat transfer in a heated circular channel under a reciprocating motion

This study is to simulate the turbulent flow field and heat transfer when cold fluid flows through a finite-length circular channel, which meantime undergoes a reciprocating motion using a numerical method. The mass, momentum and energy conservation equations and turbulent k-epsilon equations are derived for a turbulent flow field in a reciprocating coordinate by a coordinate transformation from the stationary coordinate system. The SIMPLE-C scheme is used to investigate heat transfer in a cooling channel undergoing a reciprocating motion by changing parameters and cooling mediums. The parameters are Reynolds number (7170 to 20000) and Pulsating number (1.55 to 4.65). The results show that the averaged Nusselt number increase with increasing both Reynolds number and Pulsating number, and the averaged Nusselt number of cooling oil is lower than that of water at the same incoming flow rate for both the stationary and reciprocating channel.